


Don't Look At the Carpet; I Drew Something Awful On It

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: My Wife and My Dead Wife [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, Canonical Character Death, Dissociation, Drugs, Gen, Implied Violence, Incidental heterosexual content, M/M, Misuse of prescription medication, Nightmares, Rampant Freudian symbolism, fugue state
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 03:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5852905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're such a wonderful person- but you've got problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Look At the Carpet; I Drew Something Awful On It

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place immediately after "Fingerprints In the Dust".  
> The title and summary are both lines from David Bowie's song, Breaking Glass.  
> I am deeply, deeply indebted to hotgothamite, for the fantastic drawing that inspired the scene involving Oswald, Edward, and Oswald's coat. The actual work of art is lovely and sensual, unlike most of the things that go on in this story.  
> While not graphic, there is mention of the death of an animal. There's also a certain unsavory element to Edward's dreams involving his mother. Nothing is explicit, but please be aware, Dear Reader.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

He's been punched, knocked-out. He's bleeding. Oh, God, he's bleeding so much. The blood is pouring down his face, over, into his mouth-  
Why doesn't it taste like anything?  
Wincing, Edward opens his eyes. He doesn't have his glasses on, but he can still recognize the dark and pale of Oswald.  
“I'm bleeding,” Edward bubbles, his voice another liquid leaking from his face.  
“No, you're not,” Oswald says.  
“Why is my face wet?” Edward asks, touching his face.  
“It's water. You were passed out on the floor, and you didn't wake up when I said your name, so I threw water on you.”  
“Oh. Will you help me up?”  
Sighing, Oswald extends his hand, and takes Edward's. After considerable effort, they bring Edward into a vertical position. “Thank you,” Edward says, “Can you find my glasses?”  
Oswald's heavy steps away, and then toward him. “Here.”  
He's still in his coat, the one with the soft 'V' of fur for a collar. “How long have I been on the floor?” Edward asks.  
“I don't know. I just got back.”  
“What time is it, now?”  
“Four,” Oswald says, then yawns, “Will you make me a cup of tea?”  
“Yeah,” Edward murmurs, drying his face on the dish towel. It's good to have something to do. It's often easier to piece together sundered thoughts when one has a physical activity to occupy the forebrain. Oswald likes his tea sweet, with a drop of rum. Edward tried it once, and found it irredeemably cloying. How can you drink that? he'd asked. This is how my mother makes it for me, Oswald had answered, mouth pinched into a nearly pinkless pucker, and Edward hadn't said anything about it, after that.  
“You left the window open again,” Oswald sighs. Edward turns to see him struggling to close it.  
“Let me do that,” Edward says gently, then sighs, and opens it again a crack, as Oswald takes out his cigarettes and lights one.  
“Did you have somebody over?” Oswald asks, making a face.  
“No,” Edward says, shaking his head, 'Why do you ask?”  
“It smells like a woman's perfume. Tuberose.”  
Edward's instinct is to drop the teaspoon, so he clamps his hand around it. The carved details in the metal dig into his skin. “Oh. Really? How odd. That's what Mi-” Oswald's looking at him, “my mother used wear.”  
“Well, Edward, did your mother come over at any point in the past eight hours?”  
“She's dead.”  
Oswald's expression softens. He looks much younger like this- far younger than his thirty-seven years. Why doesn't he look like this all the time? It makes one want to act kindly toward him, not fight with him. “I'm sorry,” he says.  
“It was a long time ago, before I even started working for the police department.”  
“How did it happen?” Oswald asks.  
“She was very, very sick. She had been, for a long time, but her decline was sudden and rapid.”  
“We don't have to talk about it.”  
“Thank you,” Edward says, and goes back to Oswald's tea.  
The funny thing is, it actually was his mother's perfume. The formulation that Kristen wore was slightly different, but it was close enough to resonate, deep within Edward. At their first meeting, he'd instantly felt a sense of great familiarity, as though they'd known each other, always. Surely, she had to have felt it, as well. Such a great swell of emotion must have a reflection. Otherwise, what's the point?  
He gives Oswald his tea, watches him drink it, as he smokes his cigarette. He's still wearing his coat. It's such an odd, formal little picture, and Edward wishes that he could somehow preserve it. Take a photograph, perhaps? That would require Oswald's permission, though, and he's not likely to grant it. While he's not without feeling, he doesn't often appreciate romantic gestures that don't result in tangible gain on his part. Edward will just have to fix his mind on retaining the image. It strikes him so deep, within, filling a place that he thought was empty. Or worse, filled with something horrible.  
“So, are we going to talk about why you were lying on the floor when I came home?” Oswald asks, finishing his tea, and putting out his cigarette.  
Edward shakes his head. “I don't remember. Maybe I was sleepwalking. My sleep's been disturbed. You know that.”  
“Maybe you should see someone about that,” Oswald says, holding onto the edge of the table as he stands, “I'm going to bed.”  
Edward empties the ashtray, and washes the cup. He finishes in time to see Oswald slipping his suspenders off of his shoulders.  
“Are you tired?” Edward asks. A sudden, twitching need is brewing to life, low in Edward's belly. Slowly spreading outward like blood staining textile.  
“I am, actually,” Oswald says, then, “As long as you don't expect me to actually do anything, I guess it would be all right.”  
“I can see to everything. Let me,” Edward says, and undoes Oswald's tie. He unbuttons his collar, and the first two buttons of his shirt, and slips his hand underneath. Oswald lets out what could either be a sigh, or a yawn. “Would you mind terribly if we tried something different?”  
“Different, how?” Oswald asks warily.  
“Nothing weird,” Edward reassures him, “I just think that I'd like it if you wore your coat to bed.”  
Oswald laughs. “No, that's not too weird, I guess. My coat, and nothing else?”  
“Yes.”  
“That's new.”  
“I just... like it.” It's something about the fur. It reminds Edward of something, but he can't quite pick that something from the mass of clinging impulses in his brain.  
“Whatever,” Oswald says, and lets Edward kiss him, undress him. He likes to pretend that he's so cool, but Edward knows. No one could be as cool as Oswald pretends to be. Edward understands it, understands him, and is willing to forgive. It's difficult to acknowledge your desire for another. It puts you at their mercy. In this respect, Edward must simply be stronger than Oswald. So, it's no trial to kneel before Oswald, seated at the edge of the bed, remove his shoes and his socks, kiss his ankles, slim as the neck of the swan. He feels Oswald tremble, hears the sounds that emerge from him, turned to gurgling mush as he tries to suppress them. Then, when he can hold back no more, when Edward's undressed him fully, and is still kneeling, head between Oswald's legs, the delicious agonized quality of his sighs. That particular exhalation when Edward pulls back, lets Oswald's cock fall from his mouth, wet and painfully hard- Edward would like to save that, too. To swallow it, take it into himself, let it suffuse his tissues like a drug.  
“Could you stand up, please?” Edward asks, his own voice wavering, as he retrieves Oswald's coat. He helps him on with it, wraps him up in it, buttons it, and kisses him again. The fur is like soft, dry snow, ever on the point of melting, beneath Edward's fingers. There's something lost in there, and he has to find it. It's such a peculiar set of sensations, as though he were trying to navigate another body, unknown to him, with his eyes closed. Oh.  
It rushes back to him on a tide of embarrassment, humiliation, at his own opacity to himself. Of course. Now, he knows what he was thinking of. That very first time with Kristen. He, behind her, hand between her legs, sifting through all of that delicate fur, to contact the infinitely softer textures inside of her.  
He should be ashamed. It's... dirty, somehow. Mixing the dead with the living, this way. It reeks of infidelity, but to who or to what, Edward isn't sure. The confusion of desire, though, doesn't diminish, but amplifies the feeling. It's no longer for Kristen, or for Oswald, for both, or for neither. It just is. Edward's learning that it goes much more smoothly for him when he simply allows himself to feel the way he feels. When he stops fighting.  
On the bed, he unbuttons Oswald's coat. Oswald's breathing is labored. He's flushed, from stem to stern. Oh, yes. Edward wraps his hand in the coat's material, then wraps it around Oswald's cock. It's indicative of the state that Oswald's in that he doesn't complain about dirtying his coat. Not even when he watches Edward as Edward watches, entranced, as pre-ejaculate drips down onto the material.  
He has to kiss Oswald. He has to have more of him. It's with a hard sound that they collide. Did it come from Oswald, or did it come from Edward? He has his mouth on Oswald's, and a hand in the fur, and his knee pressed between Oswald's legs. He's true to his word: Oswald doesn't have to do anything. Edward comes with a groan, smothered by Oswald's mouth, hard and bitter like an ocean's swell. He keeps rubbing himself against Oswald, for the hot pinch to his nerves, for the thrill of getting even messier. If he doesn't do something now, it's going to end this way for Oswald, too. And Edward wants more than that. He goes down on him again, sucks Oswald so hard that it hurts. Bare moments later, he's swallowing Oswald's semen, having gotten his way at least partially. Now, he does have something of Oswald inside of him.  
Oswald disentangles himself from Edward, shrugs out of the coat, which must be soaked in sweat. Edward rises, as well, takes off his pajamas, bound, now, for the laundry. He gets back into bed, and Oswald joins him, reclining into Edward's embrace. He kisses the back of Oswald's neck, his shoulder. Just as he's drifting off to sleep, he hears, at the edge of his consciousness, Oswald say, his voice nasal with fatigue: “You're paying to have my coat dry cleaned.”

Edward's dreaming. He knows he is, and yet, he doesn't. It's the obverse of that queer feeling he sometimes gets, of knowing that he's awake, but feeling as though everything isn't altogether real.  
He's gone back to his old house. Though, of course, he never left. How could he? This is his home. All of the necessary pieces are there, to make it his home. All of this things are there. His clothes. The chemistry set he got for Christmas when he was ten, and continued to use, with additions and alterations, through high school. Oswald is there, somewhere in the house. Edward knows he is, because he can hear the rumble and thump of his distant anger, waiting to blossom into a confrontation. It's only frightening if you don't know it's going to happen. When you can see it coming, you have time to prepare.  
But Edward couldn't prepare for this. He watches Oswald throw the chemistry set to the floor, grinding the pieces of broken glass beneath his heels. It's only once Oswald storms off that Edward becomes aware of his mother standing next to him.  
“He broke it!” Edward wails.  
She looks at him with amused contempt.  
“Why did you let him do that?”  
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh, that's just how he is.”  
“I think you'd let him kill me and not be too bothered,” he mutters, a hot, tight stain of old, old anger flooding through his chest.  
“You're not wrong about that,” she says in that cold, cold voice he hasn't heard in more than a decade.  
After that, he can't escape her. He wants to be alone. He doesn't want to look at her. Just the thought of seeing her makes him want to weep, with sickness, with helplessness.  
She corners him in front of his bedroom. He wants to go in, but she's coming out, filling the doorway. Why was she is there? What was she looking for? She's not supposed to go in there. She's not supposed to touch his things. He's going to have to hide everything again, now! She knows where he hid everything! He tries to get past her without touching her, but she presses into his space.  
“You know,” she says, laughter in her voice, “I've always been very sexually attracted to you.”  
It's then that he realizes how much she resembles Kristen, or how much Kristen resembles her. Or he's looking at an amalgam of their facial features- Kristen echoing through his mother, or his mother echoing through Kristen. He's going to be sick.  
Sucking in a long breath, he wakes. Next to him, Oswald groans, and pulls the blankets up higher over his injured shoulder.  
“I had a bad dream,” Edward says.  
Oswald mutters something into the pillow.  
The room is pale. “Oh, no,” he gasps, “I'll be late for work.”  
Oswald's still asleep when Edward's ready to go. Edward kisses his exposed shoulder. Rushing toward the door, he sees that the window's open a crack. He must have forgotten to close it last night. He closes it, now, taking in the early morning perfume. There was another kind of perfume, last night. Its absence in the morning is jarring. More and more, Edward's feeling it again, that sense of whole pieces of his life being removed, without his consent. He looks again at Oswald. He frowns, and leaves for work.

“I have a job, you know.”  
Then how come you never seem to be doing it? Edward wants to ask. But he can't ask that. He might have money, but Dave has all the power in this relationship. “I know,” he says, instead, “Thank you for seeing me.”  
“Well, I found something that'll help you sleep.”  
“Okay. Good. Thank you.”  
“You might not like it, though.”  
“Why not?”  
“It's kind of... illegal.”  
“Yes, because selling drugs that you steal from work is the model of law-abiding behavior.”  
“No, no- it's an actual illegal drug.”  
Edward frowns. “What is it?”  
“Rohypnol. Roofies.”  
“What?” Edward laughs.  
“Look, the one thing they'd definitely notice going missing in this place is the shit they use to knock the patients out. Anyway, most of it's serious shit- not sedatives, but anti-psychotics, like Thorazine, and shit. But... I know a guy who can get Rohypnol, from, like, Europe. He sells it to me, and I sell it to you.”  
This is absurd. Edward says so.  
“Take it or leave it.”  
“Well, I'm leaving it. What was it you said, the other day, about stronger painkillers?”  
Dave shakes his head. “Something like that, on its own, won't make you sleep. Unless you take too much. Then, you're looking at the big sleep,” Dave giggles.  
“What are you on?” Edward asks, coming closer, trying to get a good look at Dave's pupils.  
“Hey, fuck you!” he says, waving a hand in front of Edward. “Nothing you'd want,” he laughs again, “Unless you want to feed it to your little girlfriend, get her all lovey-dovey and shit before you put it in her.”  
“I told you. This isn't about a woman.”  
“Fine. Fuck off. Uh...” Dave dribbles, “Fuck. I can get you... fucking... Midazolam. That's about it. They use it when they have to sedate the crazies to operate on them.”  
“Operate on them? Why are they doing that?”  
“Fucked if I know. But that's about it. Do you want it?”  
“Yes,” Edward sighs.  
“Five hundred.”  
“For what? For how much?”  
Dave shrugs. “However much I can get you.”  
“This is absurd,” Edward says again.  
“Don't like it, go to the fucking doctor, and tell him your tale of fucking woe.”  
“Fine. Not today, though. I'll come back, later this week. Do you have my Percocet?”  
“Yep.” Dave turns around, and extracts it from beneath his scrubs.  
Edward frowns. “That's lovely.”  
“Drug-dealing's a dirty business,” Dave says, and laughs to himself.  
“I have to go.” Oswald's dry cleaning is waiting.  
“Peace,” Dave calls from across the roof, lighting a cigarette.  
It's peace that Edward finds at home. He gives Oswald his medication, tries not to watch Oswald crush one of the pills and insufflate the powder, but the apartment is small. There's nowhere Edward could hide, even from the sound. That sharp, hollow sound, like the tip of a syringe to his ear, so much like the panicked rush of Kristen's last breath. It rings through the space. Thankfully, it's over soon, and the drug leaves Oswald so pliant, so soft. Why can't he be like this all of the time?  
“Can I show you some things that used to belong to my mother?” Edward asks.  
“Hmm? Sure.” Oswald's head is in his lap, so he lifts him gently, and lets him rest on the couch while Edward goes to look for the box. He brings the box that contains the chemistry set, too.  
“This was my chemistry set, when I was a kid,” he tells Oswald.  
“That's nice,” Oswald says, but not dismissively, like he might if he were sober.  
“Oh. Here are my journals.” Edward had forgotten that he still had them.  
“Can I read them?”  
“No,” Edward laughs nervously, “There's nothing really interesting in them. Just kid's stuff. Didn't you keep a journal, when you were a kid?”  
“No,” Oswald says.  
“This was her perfume,” Edward says, and uncaps the bottle. The scent has changed slightly, of course, as all chemicals do over time.  
“It's nice.”  
“Yes,” Edward waves the bottle under his own nose, discomfited by the alteration, however natural it might be, “It is. I have her lipstick, too, actually. I forgot that I had this. And her compact. This was her address book. When I was a kid, I thought it was so fancy, because it had that little pencil. These were her everyday earrings. All of her good jewelry went to her sister. Except her engagement ring. I have that in a safe deposit box. They said I should keep it, for that special lady, one day.”  
“Hmm,” Oswald hums.  
“I have her furs in storage. She had a lot of them. She wore them even after it stopped being fashionable. Most of her clothing is there, too. Her sister didn't want it.”  
“What about your father?” Oswald asks.  
“What about him?” Edward asks, sounding harder than he means to.  
“My father's a bastard, too,” Oswald says.  
“There are photo albums,” Edward says, ignoring Oswald's comment, “but I don't feel like getting them out, right now. I'm going to put this stuff away.” Suddenly, he feels uneasy.  
“Okay.” Oswald's head hits the couch cushion again.  
“Do you want dinner, or do you just want to go to sleep?”  
“Whatever you want,” Oswald says, still lying on his side, drawing up his legs with a facility Edward's never seen before.  
“Be careful with yourself,” Edward says softly.  
Oswald opens his eyes, smiles. “Why, so you can not be careful with me, later?”  
“Dinner will be ready soon.”  
“Good.” Oswald closes his eyes again.  
Fortunately, by the time they get to bed, Oswald's a little bit closer to normal. Otherwise, it wouldn't be right. As it is, Oswald's easy dreaminess is unsettling, and Edward doesn't push either of them. It's quick, and simple. Something nice for them, before they go to sleep. No complications.

“I've always been very sexually attracted to you.” Now, it's Oswald, wearing one of his mother's coats. The sable. Beneath Edward's hands, the fur is electric. Oswald has on her Hermes scarf, too, which Edward's father brought home from a trip to France; wrapped around his head, as she wore it on a windy day. He's wearing her lipstick, the fiery coral that used to fascinate Edward when he was young, smudged carelessly over his pale mouth.  
“Don't you want to see what's down there?” Oswald asks. The coat is pulled aside.  
Oh, no.  
“No.”  
“Shut up,” Oswald grumbles.  
“What?”  
“Shut up, Edward. You're having one of those stupid dreams. Go back to sleep.”  
“I was dreaming.”  
“I know. Go back to sleep.”  
“I can't sleep.”  
Oswald sighs. “Do you want to tell me about it?”  
No. “I don't remember what happened.”  
“It's just a dream. It doesn't mean anything.”  
“I want- I want-” But what does Edward want?  
“Did you not get laid in high school, or something, so now, you have to make up for lost time?”  
“Yes.”  
Oswald sighs again. He turns to face Edward. “Just make it quick, okay? And if I fall asleep again, don't wake me up.”  
But he needs Oswald awake. He needs Oswald with him. He can't let Oswald fall asleep again. He kisses his mouth, so that he'll want to kiss back. First, just a gentle brush, to make him lean in, chase Edward. Then, hard, bruising. He presses his fingers into Oswald's wounded shoulder, holds him down as his body snaps like a whip. Now, Oswald's awake.  
He doesn't usually get this rough. He knows what he's doing, and Oswald responds positively, but it still feels so strange. Like it's somebody else. It feels as though Edward's getting away with something.  
“But you like to get away with things,” Oswald whispers into his ear.  
“What?”  
“I said you don't usually do these kinds of things.”  
“No. No, I suppose that I don't.”  
“Well, don't stop.”  
He can't stop. Something's on his trail, and the only way to throw it off is by staying awake. Staying here. With the living. Oswald's alive. All of him is palpitating and heaving, sounding with blood and breath. His mouth is hot against Edward's. His come is hot on Edward's thigh. His is a living body.  
“For now,” someone seems to say, from a hidden place, known only Edward. But no. It's the wind. He was careless, and left the window open again. It's just the wind.

There is a dead mouse.  
“Get this out of here,” Oswald spits, shaking his head in disgust. Edward looks at the mouse, into its glassy little eye, and has to rush to the toilet.  
He's remembering something. What it is, he's not sure. He doesn't want to know what it is. If he can just keep it away, he'll be all right. He'll be safe.  
But he's not oblivious. It all goes back to the night that he woke up on the floor, the smell of tuberose on the air. He doesn't need to know. It feels wrong to scorn knowledge- he's a scientist!- but this isn't knowledge that anyone should have. Whatever it is that's bound up in that scent, and the corpse of the mouse, and those increasingly intense dreams.  
“Is there something I should know?” Oswald snaps.  
“What?” Is this a game of some kind? Edward wishes Oswald had told him that they were playing before Edward had pulled down his pants.  
“If you want to see other people, at least have the decency to tell me.”  
“What?”  
“Because I have other options, too.”  
“I really have no idea what you're talking about.”  
“Edward. There's lipstick on your cock.”  
“What?” But he's already stumbling to the bathroom before Oswald can answer.  
There is. In a shade he knows well. But how-  
He has to lie. That's the only solution. He wipes it off, then returns to Oswald.  
“She was someone I met at work,” Edward says, “Something had happened, to- to a relative of hers. She was grief-stricken, not thinking properly, and I- I-”  
“You comforted her?” Oswald sneers.  
This is the comfort, though. This lie. How Edward wishes it were true. “I'm so sorry. It was over before I even realized what had happened.”  
“That sounds... disappointing.”  
“I think I had very little to do with it,” Edward laughs, and sits down next to Oswald. But not too close to him. “People can react strangely, after being close to death.”  
“Tell me about it,” Oswald says, and rolls his eyes. Edward doesn't want to think about what this might mean.  
“I'm so sorry. We don't have to do anything else tonight. Let's just go to sleep. Can I hold you, though? Can I just do that?”  
Oswald shakes his head. “I guess.”  
Edward puts on his pajamas and gets into bed. After a while, Oswald joins him. If he's still angry, it's a manageable kind of anger. He's soft with lassitude in Edward's arms, and some it must bleed into Edward, because he's soon asleep.  
Not another dream. No.  
He's standing by Kristen's grave. He's watching himself dig it up.  
“No,” he whispers, “Don't.”  
His other self stops digging, and looks at him, grinning. “Why?” he asks, plunging the shovel into the ground, which seems to let out a sigh, “Don't you want to know what's down there?”  
His dream-self continues digging, earth piling up all around both of them. He drags up the box. Kristen's box. He splits the lock with the edge of the shovel. He opens it.  
Inside is


End file.
